Driver of the Year 2008

The second running of Driver Database's Driver of the Year Awards was a Sebastian Vettel Grand Slam! The young German, who was last year's Young Driver of the Year, won the bigger Driver of the Year title pretty comfortably with over 30% of the votes. F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton followed in second ahead of his main champinship rival Felipe Massa.

Not surprisingly Sebastian Vettel claimed the Young Driver of the Year title as well, this time with 40% of the votes. Second was British Formula 3 champion Jaime Alguersuari and third came New Zealand's Earl Bamber.

As the top five of the Driver of the Year were open wheel drivers it's no real surprise that the Open Wheel Driver of the Year category ended the same. No position changes in the top five and the third category straight that the young Finn Valtteri Bottas finished fourth in.

As Sebastian Vettel didn't drive any touring cars during 2008 a couple of other drivers were in with a shot as well. It was a DTM shoot-out in the Stock car / Sportscar / Touring car Driver of the Year category where Paul Di Resta edged out the champion Timo Scheider with 25% to 13%. WTCC champion Yvan Muller came third with 9% of the votes.

In the Karting Driver of the Year category last year's winner Marco Ardigo took a crushing victory again. This time with 43% of the votes. Jonathan Thonon came in second 13% while the rest of the nominees were pretty close for the third spot. Finnish KF3 karter Aaro Vainio ended up best of the rest in third place with 7.6% of the votes.

Sebastian Vettel again. In 2008 he was the driver that surprised the most number of people with his performance and won the final category of the 2008 Driver of the Year Awards: Surprise Driver of the Year with 33% of the votes. He was followed by Jaime Alguersuari (14.1%) and Earl Bamber (12.9%).

Driver of the Year
	1. Sebastian Vettel Formula 1 30.7% 2. Lewis Hamilton Formula 1 18.3% 3. Felipe Massa Formula 1 12.1% 4. Valtteri Bottas Formula Renault 2.0 9.4% 5. Scott Dixon Indy Car 8.7%
Young Driver of the Year
	1. Sebastian Vettel Formula 1 40.0% 2. Jaime Alguersuari Formula 3 19.6% 3. Earl Bamber GP2 Asia / A1GP 14.1% 4. Valtteri Bottas Formula Renault 2.0 9.6% 5. Jules Bianchi Formula 3 4.8%
Open Wheel Driver of the Year
	1. Sebastian Vettel Formula 1 30.3% 2. Lewis Hamilton Formula 1 22.1% 3. Felipe Massa Formula 1 10.3% 4. Valtteri Bottas Formula Renault 2.0 8.2% 5. Scott Dixon Indy Car 8.1%
Stock car / Sportscar / Touring car Driver of the Year
	1. Paul Di Resta DTM 25.5% 2. Timo Scheider DTM 13.1% 3. Yvan Muller WTCC 9.0% 4. Jimmie Johnson NASCAR 8.7% 5. Carl Edwards NASCAR 8.4%
Karting Driver of the Year
	1. Marco Ardigo KF1 43.0% 2. Jonahtan Thonon KZ1 14.3% 3. Aaro Vainio KF3 7.6% 4. Michael Vincec ICC 6.6% 5. Robert Foster-Jones KF2 5.9%
Surprise Driver of the Year
	1. Sebastian Vettel Formula 1 33.9% 2. Jaime Alguersuari Formula 1 14.1% 3. Earl Bamber GP2 Asia / A1GP 12.9% 4. Felipe Massa Formula 1 11.6% 5. Roberto Merhi Formula Renault 2.0 6.1%

The Driver Database 2008 Driver of the Year awards were run in two parts. First the visitors of Driverdb.com were able to nominate drivers for all six categories. The ten drivers with the most nominations in each category were then selected as the nominated drivers. During one month the visitors were able to vote for the drivers in all six categories.